Financial services have traditionally been provided in face-to-face meetings between a financial services provider, such as a banker and a customer. Typically, the customer traveled to the bank or other financial service center to meet with the financial service representative. The location of the financial service center has frequently, not been in a location which has been very convenient for the customer to use. However, once the customer arrived at the service center, the customer could speak to a single financial services representative and obtain information in a variety of areas related to financial services, products and other information typically provided by a banker or other financial services provider.
In addition to being frequently inconvenient for the consumer, this arrangement has not been advantageous for the financial institution either. In particular, it has not been efficient, or cost effective, for a bank or financial service institution to have a branch office staffed with consultants and experts in various aspects of banking and other financial services. Typically, these experts and consultants are not providing services at all times. This "dead" time has been inefficient and costly to the financial services business.
Banks and other financial institutions have made an effort to reduce costs by use of technology. In particular, banks frequently employ automatic teller machines, ATMs. Banks may also provide limited information that can be accessed by a consumer from a home phone or personal computer. This limited information is typically in the nature of account balances. Other financial services companies, such as stock and bond brokerage houses, also have personal computer access to their consumers.
While the ATM and personal computer based services permit a customer to perform some financial service activities at home, 24 hours a day, the quantity and quality of information provided is very limited. This technology does not provide advice which is tailored to a consumer specific need, such as specific lending information or mortgage information. Furthermore, this type of service does not allow for visual or audio contact with a living being. Because of the history of the financial services industry, and the personal nature of services that have been historically provided, the use of the electronic-based technology has tended to erode trust between the consumer and the financial institution.
Use of video conferencing technology has received some consideration by financial services in recent years. Video conferencing potentially provides face-to-face contact between the financial service provider and the customer. The difficulty has been in connecting a consumer with the appropriate financial service representative, without wasting the consumer's time and without interrupting business under consideration by the financial service representative.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,663 issuing Jun. 30, 1998 describes a system for providing banking services via video in real time to a customer by connecting with one of a plurality of remote locations from among a plurality of bankers at a central location or other locations. The system includes at least one customer kiosk at a remote location. The kiosk has a video camera and a video screen, a mechanism for receiving customer input, and a mechanism by which a customer can register a request for video connection to a banker. A link is provided that connects the customer kiosk to a central information processor containing information and data files regarding the customer's account and the bank services, products and information. A second communication link is provided that connects the central information processor to a banker's terminal. A video communication link is provided that connects the banker's terminal to the customer kiosk and vice versa. A call distributor connects the customer to the banker by video by way of a sequence of direct connection to an available banker, or holds in queue for attention by a next available banker, or transfers the call and identifies the kiosk from which the customer's request for video connection to a banker was initiated. The system is used so that when the banker's terminal receives the customer's request for video connection to a banker, the banker's terminal effects a video connection over the video communication link between the banker's terminal and the customer kiosk to enable a real time video conference between the customer and banker.